


Five Times Jon Sims Would Really Rather Be Anywhere Else

by labocat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Eldritch, Madame Puddifoot's Tea Shop (Harry Potter), Monsters, Other, Tea, Tentacles, Under-Desk Blow Jobs, five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 10:59:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19061263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/pseuds/labocat
Summary: He really should have read the fine print.





	Five Times Jon Sims Would Really Rather Be Anywhere Else

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkrosaleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkrosaleen/gifts).



The Archivist hangs in the balance in the void, his eyes closed. That will not do. Another tendril reaches out, caressing his skin, coaxing his eyes to wakefulness, trying to entice him to take in all the bounty of knowledge that is spread before him. It knows he wants to see, knows that it is in his nature. It even knows why he fights it, even if he himself will not admit it. 

He dreams, imagining himself in his own bed, the illusion of safety wrapping itself around him like the walls of a stage set, and even as he moves from dream to dream, knowing the pain of each supplicant he visits but unable to abate any of it, he tells himself that he is still separate from it. That he is above it.

The tendrils wrap around him that much tighter, winding in and around his body, owning him, their eyes rising to gaze into his own, regardless of lids, willing him to see. His time will come, whether or not he wants it. All that matters is if he is ready. 

~~  
Given a choice, before all of this, Jon would have said he preferred being alone. If he’d known about the Lonely years ago, he might have even welcomed it.

Now, though, walking through abandoned London streets that should be bustling this time of night, he wishes for even a strange face. Being alone in his office is of no consequence, and he refuses to admit the difference is because of anything having to do with Beholding, but the silence here is strange, no longer comfortable.

He picks up his pace, until he hears a door open, his head automatically turning towards the sound.

“Hello there, Archivist. Strange night to be out.”

He knows he shouldn’t trust Michael, but he’ll always take what he knows over what he doesn’t.

He steps inside.

~~  
If everything was right with this world, Artefact Storage should work closely with the Archival Department, that they should be as neck-deep into all of this as he and his team. But as the past year has shown, nothing is right with this world, and all he gets as he steps out of the lift into Artefact Storage is glares. He knows, unbidden, that it is because Archives is seen as the favored department, and he does not have the strength nor the kindness to tell them that they do not want to be favored by the Eye. They are already deep enough, have likely already been too touched by fear to ever truly leave.

Nonetheless, eyes follow him as he walks between cubicles. This is nothing new.

“I’d like to requisition a box,” he says, and hopes beyond hope they will not be able to find it, that somehow they have lost it. He knows it is not, knows where it is, but he can still cling to all-too-human errors.

~~

Jon’s mouth is full, throat is full, but even if it wasn’t he doesn’t know what he’d do about this situation. It’s not as if he could quit, not as if he could file harassment to management, not when management is the one who has him on his knees, under his desk, keeping quiet while Elias goes about filing his paperwork. The worst Jon could do with his mouth free is ask Elias _why_ , and he’s not sure he even wants that answer, no matter how sweet the compulsion. 

It’s easier this way, and he’s come to see it as just another skill acquired as part of the job, though he doesn’t suspect he would ever need to apply for another, nor as if he could put this on his resume.

Nor could he ever admit, to anyone, much less himself, that the way Elias’s hand buries itself in his hair as soon as the door closes behind the hapless research intern who had come for advice - foolish, though if they haven’t learned by now, it is likely too late for them - is something he’d come to crave in his weaker moments, or the way he leans into Elias’s hand as it trails across his cheek.

Jon knows his voice has power, but not the power he needs in these moments. Jon can extract knowledge from someone, but Elias already knows it, knows it before it needs to be used as a weapon, and though Jon suspects he can no longer truly die, he can still be hurt. 

So he stays on his knees and tilts his head into Elias’s hand, sucks harder, and does not imagine what he’d do if the positions were reversed, if his voice were the one giving orders, telling Elias how good he looked on his knees, his mouth full and eyes glazed. He does not think about these things and closes his eyes against the knowledge that he could.

~~

_Team morale_ , Jon repeats inside his head as he walks through the door of the tea shop Martin has picked out, its pink walls and insipid decor doing quite a lot to make him almost turn around before he has one foot over the threshold, prior resolutions be damned.

But Martin has already caught sight of him and has raised one hand, waving him over to a table also containing Basira and Melanie and - he doesn’t know how Martin did it - Tim and Daisy.

He only has to last through at least one cup, he tells himself as he nods and sits down. And at least they won’t be likely to talk about work, not with so many civilians about. Jon doesn’t know the last time he saw so many strange faces while awake. 

Their waitress comes over to take their order, and Jon has the disconcerting feeling of knowing what her A-levels were, though perhaps it was just his own passing thought at what could have landed her as working at such a place as Madame Puddifoot’s. Though he’s not sure why she’s currently concerned about owls and newts.

~~


End file.
